Avast, ye! Swab the poop deck! Et cetera!

That's right, it's International Talk Like A Pirate Day again! Yarr! In case you were wondering, my pirate name is Cap'n Gwyn Sharkchum. And if you ever wondered what kind of pirate I am, it's the kind that doesn't do anything. Well, either that or a space pirate. It's also International Wear A Dress Week, so I have on a skirt right now - since the work week is finally over. I need a pirate dress. That would be cool.



So, so much has been going on lately, and I haven't blogged about any of it. My little sister is a teenager now, my brother got engaged, and both of my baby nephews turned one. We finally got around to painting Porter's room this weekend. The paint chip described the color as apple green but it came out of the bucket highlighter-yellow, though it eventually dried to what Betsy describes as "sunny green." That's actually the phrase she uses for light colors: ie. sunny brown is tan. But in this case it actually works.



Amy is getting closer and closer, but she still hasn't mastered the whole crawling thing. She gets up on all fours and rocks, and then she throws up one fat leg behind her like she wants to sit up. She can actually sort of iinchworm-it across the floor but inevitably gets stuck in the corner, like those robot dogs always do. And then she goes "Arf! Arf!" until her batteries run down.

Porter started preschool this week. Here he is on his first day. Isn't he cute?


This week they learned about watermelons. And he gets to ride the bus every day, just like Betsy! He was pretty jealous when she started riding the bus in the spring so I'm glad it's his turn now.

And Betsy? Well, kindergarten is pretty much love for her. You remember that, right? Life doesn't get much better than kindergarten. Her teacher is really big on writing - for example, she tells the students if they want to ask her a question or remind her of something, they should write her a note, and she's sent home words we can post all over the house - and Betsy really seems to get it. Pretty much every scrap of paper - junk mail, receipts, I swear I caught her with the checkbook the other day but I got to it before she vandalized it - is covered with letters. Sometimes I can decipher it, sometimes not. They just got done with a unit on butterflies, and as everyone knows,


butterflies are wonderful.

Where's Norm Abrams when you need him?

Some of our baseboard trim is pulling away from the wall. Any idea how to fix it? I tried pounding in some finish/trim nails but that didn't work; do I need to be using a nail gun? And is the world really safe if I have a nail gun in my hand? (starts humming 'Do It Again'... no, there is no situation where a Steely Dan song does not apply)

Anyway, we've started the big push to get our house presentable. I've been spackling and sanding and priming and I'm going to go down to Lowes tomorrow after Betsy's school picnic and get a whole lot of paint. I just got done cleaning the fronts of the kitchen cabinets. It's funny, you don't realize how dirty things can get in less than 2 years. Like the doors... holy cow, our doors were filthy. Of course, the downside to removing all of the Stealth Dirt is that you get absolutely zero sense of accomplishment, because who really cares if the doors are clean or not? But still, I think that if we are still in this house a year from now we will make washing all the baseboards and trim and stuff an annual chore.

And holy cow, you would not believe the amount of crayon on Porter's wall!

Aside from all the spackling (Isn't 'spackle' a fun word? Spackle spackle spackle) here is what else I have gotten done recently.





I've gotten faster at scrapbooking lately; I'm trying not to spend so much time agonizing over the placement of one tiny brad and the result is that I can actually get 2 or 3 layouts done in an evening if I really want to. 'Piggies' was a really hard one to finish; I agonized over it for a while and in the end I just decided to put everything on the page and call it a day. I still think it needs something more but if I figure out what that is, great, and if not it's still a completed scrapbook page. I'm sure not going to lie awake worrying about it. Mainly because I already have Amy to keep me up at night, and why mess with perfection?

As promised: Pictures!

Just in case you ever wondered what the doors in my house look like, now's your chance to find out!

First up, the maternity dress:

Honestly, I feel kind of 'meh' about this one. I went by the measurements and sewed a Medium and it ended up kind of tenty and sacky. Also, the zipper looks horrible which means I can never wear it when Mom is around. On the plus side, it's a maternity dress so there's a limited amount of time I can actually wear it, and then I'll pass it on to someone else without any guilt.

I've been wearing my glasses a lot more lately because my contact lenses have been giving me problems. I've read that it can happen during pregnancy but it's never happened to me before. Yes, being pregnant can actually change the shape of your eyeball (as if the freakishly distended uterus wasn't humiliation enough). There's no excuse for why I'm not wearing any tights, though, except that maternity pantyhose are the devil's tool.

The art on the wall behind me is a Porter original (he goes by one name professionally, kind of like Christo and equally hard to clean up after).

Here is the second dress, which is only about 80% completed. I messed up the ties (Hey! Those pattern markings are there for a reason!) but I can't wait to wear it.

Mainly because I can't wait to be a normal shape again.

I've been doing a lot of scrapbooking lately (and not putting away my supplies in between, which is why there are Hermafix tabs all over the front of the dishwasher) so here are just a few pages to share. I couldn't fit all of the journaling onto the same layout as the photos so I did a separate no-photo page. I should probably do that more often. (Click on the second one if you want to see it... the image got all funky when I resized it.)
Do you not love the patterned paper? It's from K and Company's Wild Saffron line (which, for some reason, does not show on their website). I see that and I think, Vintage apron. I wish it was fabric. (Half the time, I see fabric and I think, I wish that was scrapbook paper. The other half of the time it's the other way around. This is a serious problem.) I stalked Michaels for about two months before they finally restocked the matching felt flowers, and I got the last pack. Bwahahaaa.

Last but not least, here is my linen closet Before:
And here is the After.
It's not exactly something out of Martha Stewart Living but I've finally created a sense of order, and more importantly, all of the games have a home. Have I ever mentioned how much I love those Sterilite storage baskets? They are like two bucks at Target. I keep practically everything in my house in one of those (I need to go and get some more actually). If you come to my house after the baby's born and you find her sleeping in one, that's when you'll know I've gone too far.

Again with the not posting.

Perhaps I should set a New Year's Resolution that I will actually update my blog more often than hardly-ever? I am truly a loser, and thanks for continuing to read if my flakiness hasn't driven you away.

Anyway, Happy 2008! Matt and I had big exciting plans for New Year's Eve... we put the kids to bed early, grilled up some steaks (did I mention the almost embarrassingly large box of steaks that Matt's boss sent us for Christmas? They are delicious) and popped open some bubbly (Meijer brand sparkling lemonade) and watched The Bourne Ultimatum on DVD. Actually, now that I think about it, I can't remember the last time we've seen a movie in the theaters. I'd rather just sit around in my pajamas on the couch than actually hire a babysitter and go out. Plus, there are special features!

The Bourne Ultimatum was awesome. I think that's my favorite trilogy since The Lord of the Rings.

And now Christmas is officially over. *sob* The tree went back into the basement today, and most but not all of the cookies in the freezer have been eaten. Of course there is still scrapbooking to do...

Also, I'm now in my third trimester. I realized this on January 2nd when I had my doctor's appointment and had to do the blood glucose test, which is usually around 28 weeks. Sad, that I had to be poked in the elbow with a needle to realize how far along I am. Hooray! I don't have gestational diabetes. I'd be in big trouble otherwise because I've been going to town on the Christmas cookies and I don't have a particularly burning desire to give birth to a baby the size of a Thanksgiving turkey.

I've been keeping myself really busy this week because seminary doesn't start until Tuesday. I have the maternity dress almost finished - I'll do the hem while we are watching The Painted Veil tonight (thank you, Netflix!) and then I can wear it to church tomorrow. The wrap dress is actually almost done too, which is goofy because it will be ages and ages before I can wear it. But it's coming together really easily so I think I'll go ahead and finish it. (Fortunately I'm carrying kind of low, so I was able to fit the bodice. As long as the bodice fits, the whole thing should fit, right?) I also did some scrapbooking; in fact I've got 5 or 6 pages that are ready and just waiting for me to stop being lazy and scan them. (It's a long story but I have to hook up the extra printer and use the scanner on that one... and the second printer is on a shelf in our closet and that would mean I'd actually have to go in there and get it.) And yesterday I organized the linen closet, which has been bothering me for a long time actually. The kids got a lot of games for Christmas and we really needed a place to put them besides "shove them on the shelf in between the air mattress that works and the air mattress that doesn't work." (We got rid of the broken one, by the way.) It looks fabulous, even if it doesn't stay that way for long.

Will put up pictures of said projects soon. Me lazy.

Son, you got a panty on your head.

Apparently, this is what happens when I leave Matt alone with the kids and a camera. Although I think it was actually Porter's idea to wear Betsy's tights (she calls them "sock-pants") on his head. Let's just hope it's not an indicator of his future career choices.

There were a couple of other pictures but they were even more disturbing.

Wanna see what I did over the weekend?

I reconfigured our master closet a bit, moving one shelf up a foot or two and installing another one below it. That Rubbermaid closet system is actually quite easy to work with. I've increased our capacity by about 40%, which as you can see from the picture, we don't actually need...

Patio pictures

Mom wanted to see some pictures of the new patio. So here you go... the patio is in there somewhere behind the kids... if you squint.

It was nice tonight so we ate outside again. I made what was originally intended as chili, but I didn't have any ground hamburger, so I used chicken breast, and I didn't have any tomato sauce, so I just used 2 cans of tomatoes, but it was really soupy, so I used smashed up tortilla chips to soak up the juice... So I guess what I made is Chicken Tortilla Soup.

I wore one of my new linen skirts to church today. Did I mention that I went back to Old Navy, and got two long, bias-cut linen skirts for 97 cents each??!! Yeah, it's a sickness. One is white, so I can't wear it for a while, but the other is a sort of plummy-raspberry color, so I wore it with my white Wal-Mart blouse and looked very hip. Man, I love the 97-cent stuff.

Just playing catch-up...

It's been a really busy (but fun) week. My cardstock class went really well. I only had 2 out of the 3 ladies actually show up, but I really had fun teaching them. Both of the ladies were beginner scrapbookers, so I was able to share a lot of my 6 years' experience with them. (6 years??!! Holy cow, has it been that long?) I did get to watch the NCIS premiere on tape, and all I can say is, yay for Tony being in charge, and boo, hiss! to Gibbs' new pirate look.

Matt's parents flew in on Wednesday night, and boy, are their arms tired! Har. Matt and Wally spent the weekend working on the patio for our new house, and I spent the weekend cooking. I've made Moroccan chicken stew, risotto, pecan pie with real whipped cream (none of that Cool Wip nonsense), black bean soup, zucchini soup, biscuits, a cake, and an endless stream of zucchini bread. They brought several arm-sized zucchini from their garden, so I've been making and freezing little mini-loaves to feed the kids for breakfasts. I think I have somewhere between 10 and 15 in there now.

Our neighbor kindly let Matt and Wally borrow his tamper and his tile saw to work on the patio. We gave him some zucchini bread as thanks.

On Saturday, Connie and I hit up Half Price Goodwill Day. I got some sweet stuff, including an awesome pair of suede boots for four bucks. I was pretty happy about that. Saturday night, we went to the Relief Society broadcast (because next week is General Conference - man, it always sneaks up on ya, doesn't it?!) I love hearing the Prohpet speak to us and tell us how great we women are. It's a fun contrast to Priesthood session, where it seems like the men always get chastised. I like to tease Matt about that one.

I taught the Relief Society lessonon Sunday - my first time teaching in the new ward. Have I mentioned how much I hate it when I ask questions and people don't respond? I'm sure that they are just too shy, but I always end up feeling kind of silly. It always makes me think, I should do a better job of responding when someone else is teaching. Even if I don't have any super profound insight, it does beat the sound of crickets chirping, don't ya think?!